From the outer darkness
Tonight’s kill count: 1.
You scurrilous fiend. Did you think your attempts to conceal yourself in leaves would be your salvation? Did you hope hiding beneath a bush would give you refuge from my reach? Mine is the arm of wrath. There is no place it cannot reach. Mine is the gaze of vengeance, and it burns wherever it touches. You die, and in so doing fuel my desire for further carnage. Mine is a furnace of rage, and the fuel is the death of your wretched kind.
Last night’s kill count: 1
Where have you all gone, scorpions? I used to be able to count on you making yourselves known nightly. Now your incursions are decidedly more sporadic. Are my fortifications that formidable, or has cowardice won the day? Do you break so easily? Come once more, my foe. Step into the grinder. Feed the fires of my malice.
Happy 1 year anniversary! Sending out something about nightmarish horrors seems inappropriate, so I will stick with a fairly standard happy anniversary. Now we know what you are thinking, “This is where he says something about being replaced by a hive of sentient insects who have hollowed out his skull and taken control of his synapses, turning him into a human meat puppet and I’m next.” Nothing could be further from the truth. We are simply wishing you a most sincere anniversary, and at no point should you feel the need to check under tables or chairs for egg clusters that have been deposited there and will soon hatch, spilling forth millions of tiny bugs that will slowly corrupt and take control of your coworkers. This is just a simple anniversary greeting, and contains absolutely no hidden messages spelling out the doom of all mankind and the rise of the brain bugs from the Kuiper belt. We have moved beyond such human concerns and sentiments… Is what we might say if we were an insectoid hive mind, which we have clearly established we are not.
Happy one year anniversary, <NAME>! <COMPANY> has achieved market dominance in <FIELDS> through a combination of moxy, hard work, and constant sacrifice to the foul monsters that power the internet. Yes, in a sepulcher hidden beneath <COMPANY> world headquarters in <CITY>, blind monks in black robes feed a steady procession of souls into the gaping hell mouths of beasts too terrible to imagine. The iron chains of these offerings jingle listlessly as they are shoved forward into the waiting maws of things outside of space and time. There they will be ground and mangled, their energies used to power the internet, which is actually one massive hive mind comprised of the malignant intelligence of these vile creatures. On an unrelated note, what size chains do you wear?
Tonight’s kill count: 1
I came upon you and you simply stared at me. You made no attempt to move. To hide your putrid presence. I stared back at you, wondering if you were a fool or a madman. Did you come seeking death? You had survived my wall of poison. Crawled through the blighted hellscape of diatomaceous earth. All to find yourself here, at my mercy. You were a survivor. We were kin. I scooped you up in a jar and placed you on the wall, to tell your tale and the trials you had passed to the other scorpions.
Only kidding. I lifted my foot and sent you to hell, where you belong. Mercy is for the weak. Your brazen presumption disgusts me.
Please join me in wishing a happy 7th anniversary to <NAME>! It is said good things come in 7s. 7 wonders of the world. 7 deadly sins. The 7 horrors that hunger for the suffering of humans. Yes, inscrutable creatures of myth. Cryptozoological specimens that have cracked through the veil of our reality, summoning with them lairs that are impossible hellscapes from which there is no escape. Each is terrible in its own unique and enigmatic fashion. Hooked tentacles. Barbed claws. Acid breath. All of this and more are possible for these abominable beasts.
Just like Hercules, you face a serious of labors: to bring each to justice. Unlike Hercules, you are woefully unprepared for this task. We fully expect your bones to litter the floor of the first such monster you encounter. Assuming death is even possible in the warped dimensional pocket such a fiend inhabits. It could be that you merely writhe there for eternity, slowly being digested over and over and over, your mind a fractured kaleidoscope of torment. Never knowing the release you desperately crave from your eternal gulag. Forever forced to stare into the face of the one who defeated and shamed you.
I tell you what. We will give you a GoPro. Mostly because I’m eager to see what happens. I guess we will need to put it on a line or something.
Please join me in wishing <NAME> a happy one year anniversary! The void between the stars is a nightmarish menagerie of vile and inscrutable creatures. In the inky vacuum of space, strange beings thrive and multiply. Entire civilizations are born and destroyed, ripped apart by their erstwhile neighbors. Humanity, for its part, has been loudly broadcasting its presence to the universe. Finally something has answered.
The beasts who intercepted our beacons are insectoid horrors with a face that is little more than a prehensile proboscis that serves to funnel sustenance into their gaping, fang filed mouth. A mouth that leaks a steady stream of briny ichor. The acrid discharge from their chitin has corroded every probe we have sent to communicate with them. It has been decided we need an emissary. We have chosen you.
Our unlicensed chirurgeons have been dispatched. Rather, less dispatched than freed from the shackles we keep them in to prevent them from hacking each other to bits in their crazed fury to craft new and terrifying forms. They have been driven mad by the things they have witnessed, and madder still by the grim tasks to which we have set them. On arrival, they will begin their vivisection, flensing flesh from bone, leaving you little more than a twitching pile of muscle and nutrient rich slurry in a rusting, steaming vat. From this point, their dark work begins.
Our bio technicians have been hard at work constructing a shell. I am told they have been using the word “monstrous” in a cavalier fashion. It is inside of this grim vessel where the remains of your body will be hooked by the aforementioned mad surgeons, in what I am told is an indescribably painful process. It has been compared to descending all 9 levels of Dante’s inferno and hiking back out again, while Valkyries spear you and stymie your every step. Those not busy with this task will turn on the remaining personnel in the facility, turning them inside out to harvest more biological mass to add to your bulk. This containment vessel will allow you to survive the rigors of space, along with giving you the appearance of these strange aliens, which will hopefully put them at ease. You will share their spiny legs. Their grasping pinschers. Their ruin of a face with wobbling eye stalks that stare, unblinking, into eternity. We have decided to call you <FIRST NAME> Grappling-Proboscis. In fact, we chose you solely so we could make that pun.
One final note. Should you chose to betray your tormentors, should you hope to ally yourself with these denizens of the void and bring ruin to our world, we will activate protocol ‘Bomb in your neck’. Do not worry, it is actually a bit of misnomer. You will not have a neck, it is simply attached to the remnants of your spinal column.